


and the moon is the only light we’ll see

by maplemood



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Adoption, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Injury Recovery, Marriage, MayThe4th Treat, Older Man/Younger Woman, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-01 08:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/pseuds/maplemood
Summary: “You’re going to be a queen, Breha. It’s time.”Or, three nights and four firsts in the life of Breha Organa.





	and the moon is the only light we’ll see

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ljparis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ljparis/gifts).



> After reading _Leia: Princess of Alderaan_ I fell massively in love with Bail and Breha and Bail/Breha, so when I saw your prompts I couldn't resist.

Two months before her seventeenth birthday, Breha Organa ascends the summit of Appenza Peak, fulfilling her Challenge of the Body and cementing her claim to the royal throne of Alderaan. This is not unexpected, not even by Breha herself; she climbs as her mother has, and her mother’s mother, and so on, back and forth and forever. She is a daughter of the Elder Houses, a child of Alderaan—they call it a challenge, but truly? She has no other choice.

What is unexpected is this: she almost dies on the way back down.

+

“A bad fall”, they call it. Or, worse, “the accident”. When the most you can expect to lose in a fall, or even most accidents, is your dignity.

This fall takes her heart and her lungs, and her dignity besides. It’s weeks before Breha can get out of bed, stumble to the fresher on her own, or drink a bowl of soup without dribbling half of it down her nightgown. The pulmonodes throb in her chest. For months, a year, she breathes in mechanical wheezes.

Every night she watches the orange glow of her new status lights dance over the ceiling. Pulmonodes fail as often as they don’t. Bodies that would rather die than rely on mechanized hearts and lungs reject them; there’s no helping it. Breha counts the flashes of light like a prisoner counting down the days.

It’ll be better, her mother says, once she’s strong enough for her sessions in the bacta tank. Strong enough to grow new skin to cover the glowing, pulsing parts, strong enough to look normal again. Nobody else need know, unless she wishes to tell them (as if the HoloNet isn’t a thing that exists and the entire Inner Rim doesn’t already know). Hold on, close your eyes, lie back. It will be better.

It will be better soon.

Six months her mother sleeps on a cot in her bedroom. The first day of the seventh month, she wakes up, climbs into Breha’s bed to lie beside her, kisses her forehead and says, “Tomorrow night I’m sleeping in your father’s room. It’s time.”

No.

“You’re going to be a queen, Breha. It’s time.”

She was never really sure if she wanted to be a queen. She still isn’t—maybe this is her punishment. Force knows there’s no other reason for it. She can’t be a queen. She’s not strong like her mother. She’s not sure-footed. She’s not wise. She’s a cripple. She may sit on the throne, but how will she ever rule from it?

Breha cries after her mother leaves the room. She cries when the droids come to fold and store away the cot. She cries when the lights dim in the evening. She lies in her bed, the blankets grasped to a tangled, sweaty knot over her glowing heart, and cries and thinks she’ll die after all.

The pulmonodes beat, breathe inside her.

Again.

Again.

They’ll stop any minute, she thinks. Any minute, she’ll die alone.

Again.

She remembers lying, legs splayed, back broken, at the bottom of the ravine. Blood bubbling in her lungs. Spurs of bone grating where no bone should grate. Numbness, the gasping wheeze of her breath, too thin, too fine, not enough, not enough, not _enough—_

Again.

Again.

Her new heart beats. Breath swells in her new lungs. Hours pass before Breha pushes the blankets away so that her slow, pulsing glow lights the walls of the bedchamber. She counts the flashes, and with each one, little by little, her faith grows. Something close to faith, anyway.

It’s been six months. These haven’t failed her yet.

Just before daybreak, she falls asleep with her palms cupped over her heart. When she finally wakes, Breha tells her mother she won’t be going in for extra bacta sessions after all.

“So you want everyone to see them,” the queen says, her face a muddled mix of pride and horror.

“People will be able to see them, yes,” she answers. For the first time, her voice sounds smooth, regal. A queen’s voice. “What matters is that I can see them.”

+

If her marriage to Bail isn’t officially arranged, it comes close to it. “A strategic choice”, in her mother’s words, “ _very_ strategic” in her father’s. They ask Breha if she’s sure over ten times, and that’s before she proposes.

“He’s a good man,” the queen says, clasping her daughter’s hands, searching her face. “But—”

“But?” Breha repeats. “But what? What’s more important than that?”

Her mother makes a tight, exasperated noise. “ _Breha_. Will you be happy with him?”

Bail is next in line to be Senator, which she supposes accounts for the strategic half of the decision in their eyes. He’s also quick-witted, even sharp-tongued when he wants to be (though that’s rare enough), with a good head for politics and a good hand for sabacc.

Breha is twenty years old; it’s been four years since the fall. Bail is ten years older.

He’s a good man. She remembers him as one of the officials who made a point of visiting her while she recovered, though it must have been a chore. She was splattered with spilled soup or worse most days, moody every day. She’s sure she cursed him once, maybe more than once.

He always came back. Week after week. And always with a smile, small and grave, yet warm and genuine all the same. They played rounds of sabacc, him letting her win until she made him swear not to.

“I’m an invalid, not kriffing _stupid.”_

“My apologies, Your Highness.”

“And I’m not your highness. I’m an opponent. So play like I’m one.”

She was a horror. He played all the rest of their games for keeps, and beat her nine times out of ten, and that meant more to Breha than Bail is ever likely to know.

Not that any of this is easy to explain to herself, least of all to her mother.

_Will you be happy?_

She squeezes her mother’s hands. “At first? Who knows. But I’ll learn to be.”

+

She proposes to him in the royal gardens, in the blooming maze of roses. As is tradition—Bail can’t be surprised when Breha asks him to follow her. Certainly not by the time they reach the maze, which itself symbolizes commitment while the roses symbolize fertility. Still, he plays his part well. Like she knew he would.

“It would be an honor, Your Highness,” he says gravely. When he bows she notices the sprinkles of gray already fading his dark hair.

Breha takes his hands, pulling him up. At his full height, the future Senator of Alderaan is a little more than a head taller than her. He inclines his head to meet Breha’s eyes, a move she’s sure he doesn’t intend to use in order to make her feel small. Small, though, is how she feels now. Breakable. Vulnerable. Her pulmonodes throb. “I’m not your highness,” Breha says. She bites her lip. “Where will the honor lie, Bail?” She’s never called him by his name before. Never saw the need to, back in the days when she was a spoiled princess and he a long-suffering senator’s aide. “In serving Alderaan, or in serving me?”

His lips quirk. His eyes are as warm as she remembers. “Breha,” he says. He’s never called her by her name before. “Who says the honor can’t lie in both?” Slowly, almost shyly, he lifts one of his hands to cup her cheek. Breha remembers the same hand, long and capable and dark, fanning out his deck of cards, and thinks she’s been waiting for this moment since that one, and never realized until today. “May I?” Bail asks.

She nods, too eager. _“Please.”_

He kisses her, softly yet firmly, warm and long, while Breha kisses back, loops her arms around his neck, and decides they won’t be making it out of the maze for a while yet.

+

The wedding night is not something she thinks she could ever in a billion light years be truly prepared for. Breha paces the bridal suite, her hair unbraided, combed through, and perfumed, a heavy cloud of flowery musk about her face. She fiddles with the sash of her sleeping robe, rubs circles over the glow of her heart and lungs.

She waits.

Night air, heavy and warm, wafts through the open windows. After a moment of thinking, she snuffs most of the candles. She dims the lights.

She waits.

When the door finally creaks open, and she hears his voice calling her name, it’s almost a relief. A relief that braces her like a splash of cold water, so Breha doesn’t allow herself a chance to falter, no matter how ridiculous this looks. She spins around, unknots her sash with shaking fingers, lets her robe slide to the floor. “Come in,” she tells him. Her voice is steady. A queen’s voice.

(It isn’t. Not really. He obeys, he lets her believe it is, and in that moment Breha loves him more than she ever would have thought herself capable of. She loves him so much she wants to cry.)

Bail smells of his own brand of perfume, of the fine-aged wine bottled in anticipation of this very day. In the dark, she can’t make out where his eyes are lingering, though she has her guesses. Breha fights the urge to cross her arms over the pulmonodes. Instead, she lets her eyes wander over his arms, his shoulders, the cords of his throat.

Her husband swallows. She watches his throat bob, watches the candlelight and starlight both turn the gray in his hair silver. He crosses the room to their bed. He sits on the edge of it; the mattress creaks. Breha doesn’t move.

“Come here,” he says, his voice low, a little strained. He reaches for her. “Please.”

She comes to him, her hair heavy on her shoulders, her heart beating, glowing orange—she should have taken those dips in the bacta tank, should have grown skin, a covering, he can’t be used to this, can’t be expected to make love to a woman who’s half machine when he’s probably had so many women in his day, so many whole, beautiful women—

He takes her in his arms. Bail’s fingers knead her sides, hard, as though he never wants to let go, as if he wants to sink into her. He presses his lips over her flashing heart, and Breha grips him, closes her eyes, and makes a noise as soft and sharp as a sob.  

+

She can’t have babies—even an heir isn’t worth the strain on the pulmonodes. The line of succession will survive through Breha’s niece, so the blood of Alderaan will not be wasted. All is well.

One morning she wakes up, turns to him, and says, “Whether it’s ours or not doesn’t matter. I want a child.”

In one of those moments where they don’t have to question each other, or even speak, Bail simply nods. She roots under the covers to capture his hand, squeezes it.

All is well.

+

“You know we always talked about adopting a baby girl.”

“Talked,” says Breha. _“Talked.”_

But she can’t stop the smile that spreads over her face, through her bones, shatters her body to a thousand pieces bright as the suns and stars. The baby nuzzled in the crook of her husband’s arm is lumpy, red-faced, sour-smelling and exquisite. She sleeps peacefully, even snoring a little, until Breha reaches for her. Then the baby blinks awake, snuffles, and, after some consideration, wails.

“Oh, sweetheart. Come here. Come to me.”

“Her mother named her Leia,” Bail murmurs as he passed her over. He cups the back of their daughter’s eggshell-brittle skull even after Breha takes her. He doesn’t want to let go, and Breha doesn’t want to make him.

“It’s a beautiful name,” she says. “A strong one, too.”

She cradles Leia to her heart, pursing her lips and cooing, while her eyes prickle with tears for the mother who will never get to hold her daughter, never watch her grow as they will. Senator Amidala was beautiful and strong, the last of her kind in ways Breha doesn’t yet have the courage to think about.  _We will watch her for you,_ she promises silently. _For the rest of our days, we will protect her._

It doesn’t seem like such a hard promise now. 

Their first night with Leia is like their wedding night, in that they could never in a million years have prepared for it. None of them sleep. Later they’ll learn that Leia isn’t a fussy baby, generally. But when she does fuss, she’s nearly inconsolable. She cries for her mother. She cries for someone to nurse her. Obviously, Breha can’t—in any case, letting a flailing infant so near her pulmonodes is probably not the best of ideas. Bail holds Leia to his chest and feeds her bottled infant formula that she only grudgingly chokes down. With a full belly, her sobs quiet to snuffles.

“Maybe we can bring her into the bed?” Bail suggests. “Just for tonight?”

Leia promptly wets the sheets.

It’s when Breha changes into her nightgown that the snuffles stop. Leia stares, blowing quiet bubbles, her eyes, so much more focused than an infant’s should be (Breha thinks), fixed on the glow and flash of the pulmonodes.

“Thank the stars,” Bail whispers.

She laughs. “All things do happen for a reason, I guess.”

“Don’t pretend for a minute you’ve never known that,” Bail says, handing the baby over with a kiss for each of them before changing himself.

“There’s your father,” Breha croons. She juggles Leia in her arms. “Isn’t he handsome?”

“Are you already trying to give our daughter a complex?”

“Just stating the obvious,” she says, and Leia burbles in agreement.

He comes to stand with them on the open balcony afterwards. The night air is soupy, a swirl of stars smothering the sky like cream. Clouds shroud Appeneza Peak in the distance; thunder rumbles. A rough, damp wind puffs out to billow Breha’s hair and skirt.

Leia sighs.

 _Our daughter,_ she thinks, savoring it the way she savored candy as a child. _Your father, your mother._ Will she ever grow tired of these words?

Bail rests his chin on her head, links his arms around hers, around Breha and Leia both. She cranes her neck to kiss him. “Do you know why I married you?”

“Hmm.” He lets his right hand brush down to the curve of her waist. “I always assumed it was my rugged good looks.”

“Oh, yes.” Breha smiles. “But I also thought, _He was always so kind to me._ Because you always were. And I thought, _He might be the only man who’ll see me naked, pulmonodes and all, and not take a mistress afterwards._ That’s what I thought.”

They laugh quietly, though not quietly enough to keep Leia from rousing. She grizzles, mad that they’ve left her out of the fun, and curls inward, towards Breha’s heart. The pulmonodes throb, cast their daughter’s face in orange light. Like a small sun, she’ll guide their centers of gravity from now on; that’s not a prediction or a wish. It’s a certainty.

“I never thought I could a queen,” Breha whispers. “I never thought I could be a mother.”

“I never thought I’d be married to the Queen of Alderaan.” Bail touches a finger to Leia’ cheek. “And here we are.”

The night is dark. A storm is brewing. The future barreling their way is not one she feels prepared for, not in the slightest. But she is a daughter of the Elder Houses. A child of Alderaan carrying the blood of her mother, and her mother’s mother, back and forth and forever. This is her challenge. The path she must walk, whether or not she stumbles.

Whether or not she falls.

Breha snugs their baby safe against her and presses closer to her husband. “Here we are,” she agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King


End file.
